


a game of coins

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aerys Demands Other Houses Marry Brother-To-Sister, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Canon Divergence - Robert's Rebellion, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Intimacy, Mentioned Daenerys Targaryen/Rhaegar Targaryen, Minor Character Death, Multi, Pining, Queen Daenerys, The Targaryens Keep the Iron Throne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-09-06 08:41:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20288632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: “You’ll be queen one day,” Cersei says and there is a longing in her voice that Daenerys wishes she could indulge. Cersei would sit the Iron Throne beautifully. “And your brother will make an excellent king.”He will, she is certain, and that thought alone buoys her up. She likes to think she will be the sort of queen the sort they write about in stories and histories. She will be known as more than the foolish child of a foolish, unpopular king who makes foolish, unpopular decisions. They will love her if she has her way, no matter what rules her father has instituted throughout the kingdom.





	a game of coins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/gifts).

They look at her with pity a lot of the time, most of the court does, or with disgust, and their words and laughter swirl about her legs like the troublesome hem of a dress. She could flee all the way to Dragonstone and it would follow her all the way, mocking her. And so it is today.

So it is every day.

She keeps her chin high, gaze perfectly balanced between disdain and disregard as she makes her latest turn about the throne room. She is a princess, the only daughter of Aerys Targaryen, and if she cannot make her subjects respect her, she can ensure they know how little she cares for them in return. They may cry and beg her father for their lives and dignity, but she will always hope for more tears and greater flattery out of them. It is the smallest of the prices they should pay for how foolish they believe him to be. And for how, in turn, foolish they believe her to be.

“Shh, shh,” a voice is saying, pleased despite itself. Laughter of a more pleasant sort than Daenerys has experienced warms the voice. Dark shadows shroud the woman it belongs to—there are so many nooks and secretive spaces in the Red Keep, ideal for trysts—but it’s not so difficult to guess her identity from the less well-hidden golden armor her companion wears, bright and shining as his hair. Where Cersei Lannister goes, so goes her brother. “You shouldn’t.”

And there’s Jaime’s laugh in turn, deep and intimate, attractive in a way that Daenerys oughtn’t notice, not least of all because he belongs to Cersei and there is no room between them for anything else, not even a princess who finds that laugh seductive and Cersei’s answering huff of amused arousal equally compelling. His hand, she can’t help but notice, is splayed across Cersei’s flank, fingers inching her skirt up by slow measure. The shadows cannot hide that from her.

His progress is slow. Only her slippered foot is visible and her ankle, elegantly turned, transfixes Daenerys’s attention. It is not often that she sees even that small stretch of skin. It is something to be treasured for all that it is not hers.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Jaime says, brazen. “We are upholding our wise king’s wishes by—”

She slaps his hand aside, but Daenerys knows well enough that it’s a token effort, playful at best, much to Jaime’s continuing amusement. Cersei turns slightly, steps into the light and arches one perfect, gold-blonde eyebrow. She inclines her head in greeting, sober and sedate, steps ahead of her brother in this respect. “Princess Daenerys,” she says, parceling out a small degree of that warmth she normally keeps in reserve for him alone. “A pleasure to come across you under so fortuitous a circumstance.” Her attention drifts briefly to Jaime’s face. A flicker of warning settles there, but Daenerys cannot quite parse its meaning. “I hear congratulations are soon to be in order. Rhaegar has always shown the greatest degree of kindness to those around him. He will be a fine partner to you.”

Jaime makes a noise that might be agreement, might be jealousy.

She swallows and looks away, biting her lip. It hasn’t been announced yet, but everyone knew long ago that it would one day happen.

There is only so much sneering she can accept before it proves too much for her to bear and even Cersei’s mere mention of it puts her on edge. It’s only Cersei’s graceful words, her genuineness, that keeps tears from prickling at the corner of her eyes. Rheagar deserves better than the gossip Daenerys has always been subjected to. For herself, she is used to it. Unlike Rheagar, she cannot defend herself with a sword, but the slightness of her frame frightens no one. No matter how loudly or angrily she might speak to her detractors, nothing ever changes.

Perhaps things will be different once they are wed and perhaps they will not be.

She only regrets that Rhaegar cannot follow his heart, nor she, hers.

Cersei is not the confidant she might have chosen for herself under different circumstances. There is cruelty in her that has been tempered by circumstance, that much is clear even to Daenerys. It peeks out almost at random, unpredictable moments. She is bitter about her family—everyone except Jaime, who can do no wrong in her eyes—and sometimes cannot see what is right in front of her. But she is not silly. She doesn’t make fun of Daenerys. And maybe it’s only because she doesn’t want Daenerys to run crying to the king about her, but Daenerys _appreciates_ her.

“It’s an honor, of course,” Daenerys agrees, though she can’t imagine what the alternative would be. Her father would never approve of another marriage for either of them. Viserys is the only one with any give on the leash their father holds and he snaps at it with alacrity, doing whatever he wishes at every moment of the day. She loathes him for that freedom and the selfish way he abuses the privilege. One day, she might just kill him for it.

As it is, she’s only managed to delay the marriage for trifling reasons and those reasons are growing thinner on the ground as time passes.

There’s only so much longer that her excuses will hold out and it’s only by Rhaegar’s unvoiced collaboration that she’s succeeded as long as she has already.

“You’ll be queen one day,” Cersei says and there is a longing in her voice that Daenerys wishes she could indulge. Cersei would sit the Iron Throne beautifully. “And your brother will make an excellent king.”

He will, she is certain, and that thought alone buoys her up. She likes to think she will be the sort of queen the sort they write about in stories and histories. She will be known as more than the foolish child of a foolish, unpopular king who makes foolish, unpopular decisions. They will love her if she has her way, no matter what rules her father has instituted throughout the kingdom.

“It will be worth it,” Cersei insists, stepping forward and pressing her hand to Daenerys’s shoulder. She wants more from the touch than a married woman can give and Jaime must realize it, his brow furrowing in consternation and consideration. But he says nothing, remains as blank-faced as a statue, his bangs obscuring his eyes. He is as beautiful as Cersei and he keeps his distance from Daenerys.

He’s always been loyal to her and he’s always been discrete about Daenerys’s burgeoning feelings. Daenerys appreciates that about him.

Cersei searches her face and finds nothing there that is of use to her. That’s the only way Daenerys can interpret the disappointment that crosses her features. Daenerys wishes she could give her more, but to give her more would to risk embarrassing herself and that is something she cannot do. “I know,” she says instead of all the things she’d rather voice into being. “Thank you.”

“If there’s anything Jaime or I can do, please let us know.”

She knows how to answer this, too. It’s not so difficult to get the words out. “I will.”

Cersei’s gaze weighs heavily on the back of her neck as she walks away.

If she is slow returning to court, just because she wants to feel it for as long as possible, she doesn’t have to admit as much to anyone else.

*

There is anger fomenting in the North, rebellion. This is nothing new. Daenerys has studied the history of Westeros all her life, as is her duty, and she has learned nothing as thoroughly as she’s learned this: a well of rage keeps the people of the North warm in deepest Winter and provides them a fighting spirit throughout the Summer. Were it up to her, she might not demand tribute from them, finding a way somehow to allow them their freedoms in exchange for other concessions.

She has been told, on more than one occasion, that she knows fuck all about the world.

And yet, she is now overhearing talk of resistance. The whispers are everywhere, spoken indirectly between the courtiers. Even if nobody told her directly, she would know. As it is, she has Cersei behind her, braiding her hair as she might braid her own. “Lord Stark does not wish to wed one of his daughters to one of his sons,” she says, smiling at Daenerys’s reflection. “I see no reason why. It’s not like he doesn’t have plenty to spare. Sansa is the greater beauty. If I were the lady of Winterfell, I’d suggest the younger girl and one of the smaller boys.” Her voice is so matter-of-fact that Daenerys finds herself nodding along with her. “Then they can use their older children as broodmares and studs for other houses for all it matters.”

Daenerys laughs and glories in the touch of Cersei’s fingers in her hair. “Broodmares, Lady Cersei, really?”

Cersei’s hand waves indifferently through the air. “I don’t know what they do in the North. I just know they don’t wish to obey our king. That is plenty enough reason to treat them like the animals they are.”

Daenerys isn’t certain of that logic, but she refrains from speaking out against it. In truth, she doesn’t care what the other houses do either. Cersei is happy, and Jaime. That is what matters.

Leaning close, Cersei speaks directly into her ear. Her lips graze the shell of it. Daenerys is unable to suppress a shudder and can only hope that Cersei doesn’t notice. “Besides,” she insists, a smirk on her mouth, her tone studiously, ridiculously somber, “I hear they rather enjoy wedding one another to the wolves. Perhaps that’s their problem.”

Startled, Daenerys elbows Cersei, shoving at her. She feels silly for getting caught up in what Cersei was saying and sillier still when Cersei laughs at her. It’s too bad, almost. Daenerys loves to hear Cersei laugh. Every rare occurrence must be treasured. Even this one, she supposes. “You’re impossible.”

“Of course, Your Highness,” she answers, patting Daenerys’s shoulder. Her hand smooths over the back of Daenerys’s head. “Let’s get back to this, shall we? I’ve always enjoyed having the opportunity to do this for you. Your hair is beautiful.”

It’s not the grandest pronouncement anyone has made about it—despite Daenerys’s circumstances, some do try to curry favor and find it the easiest thing to compliment about her—but it’s the only one that matters to her. She fights a blush and lowers her gaze and lets herself feel only the sense of relaxation Cersei offers to her with every clever stroke of her fingers. She could fall asleep like this if she really wanted to, but she clings instead to wakefulness, needing to consume every moment of it for all its worth. It will be some time before Cersei offers again, court businesses and pleasures getting in the way of the things that matter most to Daenerys.

She nods in acquiescence and tries not to regret it too deeply when Cersei goes quiet and focused, finishing the braids with quick, precise efficiency. The urge to chatter is gone in her and Daenerys wonders what she’s done to so change the circumstances of this encounter.

Cersei is, as always, changeable and she doesn’t always relay the reasons to those around her.

*

In the normal course of things, she sees Jaime more often than she sees Cersei. The Kingsguard is always underfoot in one way or the other and their attentions pull at Daenerys’s awareness throughout the Red Keep as she traverses its corridors. She supposes they don’t want to be the ones who let a princess get herself into trouble while they’re on watch. It’s only Jaime who offers even a modicum of reprieve from that scrutiny, feigning indifference to her presence whether on- or off-duty. He’s never cruel. Just… there.

As a result, she is always relieved when it is Jaime she comes across and a little disappointed, too.

At least in most cases.

She’s trying to cross the courtyard with the least amount of disturbance to the people around her, hopes to avoid the attention of some noble or other from some minor house she doesn’t care enough about to know. And she is almost successful. If not for the rustling of parchment, she might have made it entirely to safety, but her curiosity is piqued and she stops long enough to see Jaime rising from a bench behind a nearby hedge. He’s furtively shoving a letter into his armor and his eyes widen at being so caught out.

“Your Highness.” He recovers admirably, bowing to her, giving himself another couple of seconds to rid himself of the evidence. By the time he rises again, she might have sworn there was no letter at all. His cheeks, however, flush bright red and there is some degree of a gleam in his eyes that registers as suspicious to her. He draws in a deep breath as though to steady himself. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

He speaks as though nothing is wrong, but there is a waver in the foundation of his voice like a crack in bedrock that indicates all is not well. His smile is equally weak, a pathetic thing dredged up from a swamp, pale and malnourished. “Have you received ill news, Ser Jaime?” she asked, unable to help herself. There are few enough people in King’s Landing whom she cares about and he is one of them. The words are out of her mouth before she’s entirely able control them. At least her own voice doesn’t carry and she keeps a placid smile on her face for the spies who may be watching. Any one of them would believe she’s merely wishing him a good day. “Is there something I can do for you?”

She doesn’t wince at her own eagerness, but only because Jaime makes so little of it. There is hesitation before he answers, but finally he says, “An update from home.” He says it like the word ‘home’ is meaningless. “My father has—Joffrey is apparently doing well.”

“Your father wrote to you?”

Jaime chuckles, dry and unhappy, more like a cough than anything approaching amusement. “Not out of the goodness of his heart, I can assure you. He merely wishes to rub it in our faces that our son is heir to Casterly Rock, that our son doesn’t need us, that—” He scoffs and shakes his head. “He wishes to remind us that we might as well be nothing to him or the rest of our family.”

This is one wound that Daenerys didn’t dare prod. It predates Daenerys’s birth and Jaime and Cersei both grow cold and distant whenever it gets brought up. Treading carefully, Daenerys takes a step forward and hopes he doesn’t think she will bring this information to her father. Tywin Lannister and Aerys Targaryen didn’t part on the most auspicious of terms. The only thing that holds the relationship together at all, keeps her father from retaking Lannisport and Casterly Rock and the entire west from Lannister hands, is Cersei and Jaime.

“He’s nineteen now, isn’t he?” She knows this already, of course, being almost of an age with him, but it seems the most neutral question to ask, to keep Jaime talking.

Jaime sees the question for what it is, raising a dubious eyebrow at it, but nods in response. “Twenty. I haven’t seen him in all that time either,” he hazards. “I have no idea if he even wants to see us. It would be fine if not for—” His hands clench into fists and he looks away, the muscles of his jaw jumping in response. “It hurts Cersei, these reminders.”

Understanding dawns and she is grateful that Jaime allows her to see it. In this one respect, she can assuage him. She can be a true friend. “I won’t say anything to her of the letter.”

His smile grows genuine, filled with gratitude. He is a good man beneath his disaffected, insouciant exterior. “We’ve spoken of trying again.” He says this fondly, like he has no greater wish in the world than that. “But she’s too fearful that our father will take that child from us, too.”

“I’m sorry.” She wishes there was something more she could do. Possibly, she could bring it to her father, but she couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t go to war over it, a pretext at best to get back at his once most favored adviser. If Jaime asked, perhaps she would do it anyway, but she already knows he will not ask. Perhaps he fears the same fate for his offspring, hypothetical though they remain.

“She’s made her peace with it.” His expression turns dim, the life draining from it. “I don’t wish to stir anything further up with this.” His knuckles rap lightly against his breastplate. Perhaps he’s still struggling with his own peace of mind.

Once she is queen, Tywin Lannister will find his life inconvenienced, if nothing else. That’s all she can promise.

“She’s lucky to have you.” Something fierce and prideful lodges itself in Daenerys’s chest. It yearns for something like the same in her own life. Rhaegar will never devote himself to her the way Jaime does to Cersei—and she finds it’s not even Rhaegar’s devotion she wants.

His head dips slightly in acknowledgment, but there’s a rueful smile on his mouth when he lifts his gaze again. “I think the reverse is truer to the mark, but you have my gratitude for saying so all the same.”

Daenerys isn’t generally given to blushing, but the intensity of his attention is more than enough to make her flush. She doesn’t fool herself into believing that he feels anything beyond friendship for her, but she can’t help but believe he sees more in her than he lets on. She’s heard others say it’s such a pity she and Rhaegar are already accounted for, that they’ve both grown into great beauties over the years, even considering their blood. She wishes her father might see the wisdom in that, but he will not, and she doesn’t think Jaime looks at her in terms of her appearance either.

Huffing, Jaime shakes his head and jerks his chin toward the direction of Daenerys’s destination, an unvoiced question in the gesture and one she can’t answer. She’s forgotten entirely what she even intended to do on this trip across the courtyard. It would be foolish to admit she’d rather spend her time with Jaime.

“Shall I escort you to your destination, Your Highness?” he asks, not shy exactly, but something similar to it, something close enough to it that Daenerys could pretend if she wanted to. She likes the idea of spending time with him.

A lie falls smoothly from her lips, though merely a gentle one, a harmless one. “I was just going to stroll the gardens. You needn’t accompany me if you don’t wish to, but I would welcome the company.”

She prepares herself for the inevitability that he’ll say no, but she’s overjoyed when he says yes instead, holding out his arm like a hero of old, graceful and chivalrous.

She would maintain that Cersei is lucky to have him, though she doesn’t dare say as much a second time.

*

The sound of shouting isn’t so unusual within the private sections of the Red Keep. Often, her father raises his voice with whichever adviser has displeased him and usually Daenerys refrains from getting involved, remaining as far from it as possible. There’s nothing she can ever do to assuage him and he’s all but written her off as anything other than Rhaegar’s future wife. If he wants to scream himself hoarse, that’s his business.

“—care what those Starks believe and do not believe. They will bow to my commands. That is the only belief that is needed of them!” he’s yelling. “Unless they wish to face every Targaryen soldier on their own homeland.” He’s raving now, barely intelligible. Probably it would be easier if she wasn’t standing outside the room he and at least a few others occupy. If she leans forward and peers around the door, she can see Lord Baelish and Rhaegar and the hand of another man that must belong to Varys if the cut of his sleeve and the fineness of its fabric is any indication.

“Your Highness,” Varys replies, calm as a rock in the center of a raging river. “We can force the issue, but we may—”

A thump, then a second. Perhaps a fist striking wood and then striking it again. “We will force this issue!”

“This has always been an unpopular edict and more so among the Northmen than anywhere else,” Varys replies, earnest, soothing, reasonable to the point of pain. Daenerys wishes him luck with retaining that quality, though she’s surprised he’s never faltered in it before. There’s a hint of tension in his tone that she suspects her father doesn’t notice. Even if he did, he certainly wouldn’t care.

Her father speaks slowly, venomously, of all the ways he does not care that his edict is unpopular. She can imagine him scuffling across the floor toward Varys, fire in his eyes, fire in his blood. He looks old and sad.

This is the first time she thinks she might be embarrassed of him. Menacing someone such as Varys? It’s ridiculous. A child would do that, not a king. Not a good king anyway.

“Perhaps we should…” Lord Baelish tries to say. When Daenerys looks his time, she can see a rodent-like smirk on his face, like he couldn’t be enjoying this farce more. Even Rhaegar’s look is more piteous than deferential. Her father is a joke to them, someone to be handled. She should be angry at them for that. He is still their king.

All she manages to feel is a vague, discomfited regret, maybe relief.

“The North has had enough of a reprieve,” Aerys continues, unaware of the effect he’s having on these people whom he believes are the most frightened of him, the most loyal, the most willing to do his bidding. “Eddard Stark can choose or I will choose for him and he may not enjoy having his marriage to his wife annulled when I make the decision to remarry him to Lyanna.”

A scuffle of a slippered foot across the rushes. Baelish, then. “I would gladly deliver this message north, Your Highness. I have some small influence with Lady Catelyn. It might be possible to convince them.” He says this with such dubious calmness that Daenerys suspects he’s utterly lying from start to finish. Maybe except about his association with Lady Catelyn, but only in the most literal of senses. He speaks with such humility that her father is meant to believe that ‘some small influence’ means a great deal more than Daenerys can possibly believe it does.

_Why doesn’t Rhaegar say something_, she thinks. Aerys is their father and he’s letting him flounder while others placate him with false, empty words.

Rhaegar finally speaks, but it’s not to berate Varys or Baelish for their cheek. “I should like to go, too, Father.” Daenerys is less disappointed than surprised by the request. For one, Rhaegar rarely makes them. And for another, she’s never known him to speak of the North with anything but the deepest disdain. “It’s important that they see how seriously you take their vows.”

Another thump and then rustling from at least three sources. Daenerys’s heart climbs her throat and she doesn’t have time to move before Rhaegar steps into the hall. His eyes widen and then narrow with confusion. Words form on his lips, but then he quickly makes a shooing gesture with his hand. “One more moment,” he says, turning back into the room, chest brushing against Baelish’s as he pushes him back in, giving Daenerys time to avoid the rest of them knowing she’d overheard. “I forgot to mention…”

Daenerys releases a breath and hurries back the way she came. She’s not sure what to think, every thought and emotion a tumble within her mind. If the North rebels… she can’t imagine what would happen, if she’s being honest. The North is so far away as to hardly matter in her day-to-day life, but her father is so angry about it. That has to mean something, right? But Rhaegar hadn’t seemed troubled in the slightest.

She often wonders what it would be like if she could be involved in the politics of the kingdom, truly participate in the governance of its people. She’s learned plenty enough on her own, reading and watching and wishing for more, but this is the first time she is truly shattered by the knowledge that she can have no part of that world, no useful part anyway, other than occupying the shadow of the Iron Throne, so close as to burn her, but still far enough away from what she might truly want.

It isn’t fair, she decides, that she should be left out of these decisions. She’s family. She’s as entitled to the Throne as anyone else. It’s not that she wants to depose Rhaegar before he’s even had a chance to rule, but having some say in the running of things would be nice. She shouldn’t have to scurry through the hallways in case her father sees her overhearing things he doesn’t think she deserves to know. She is a princess of House Targaryen and deserves the respect that should be accorded to her as a princess.

She just doesn’t know how to make anyone else see that.

*

Cersei pours honey into her tea like she’d rather be drinking a fine, sweet mead and swirls her spoon through it with a carelessness that Daenerys envies. The world might crumble around her and she’d survive amidst the ashes of it, surveying the entirety of it as though none of it matters. Few people see anything different and the fact that Daenerys is one of them only solidifies the dichotomy in her mind. Rumors and wild tales drift down from the North. Winter is coming, some have jokingly begun to say, not to indicate the eventual arrival of the cold season, but because Eddard Stark’s troops are preparing.

Preparing for what, nobody is entirely certain. But the word preparation is on everyone’s tongue.

“Ned will never ride south,” Cersei declares, staring out over the harbor from the veranda they’ve staked out for the afternoon. “He’s not the sort. This is provocation alone.” Her attention snaps around to something behind Daenerys’s shoulder. She lifts her hand and by the smile on her mouth, Daenerys can tell it’s Jaime. Even without the smile, she would have known. It’s easy to pick out the particular click of his armor plating. She’s mentioned a time or two that his gait gives him away, but he’s always said that suits him just fine. “Jaime will agree with me.”

He offers a smile in turn, his gaze lingering on Daenerys’s face for a moment as he tries to pick the truth from her gaze. He’s always been a little wary of interrupting their tête-à-têtes, though Daenerys can’t guess why. Cersei would never complain. “What am I agreeing with?” he asks, feigning a somberness Daenerys could never imagine him genuinely feeling. “Not a turn around the path, I hope?”

Daenerys knows very well that he enjoys the walkways surrounding this particular veranda; it’s why she and Cersei always choose it. They are also aware how often he patrols it. Cersei rolls her eyes, a fondness and warmth there that nothing and no one can match. It makes something ache in Daenerys’s chest. That’s what she wants. Someone to look at her like that. Her stomach twists and she glares down at her cup, half-drained of tea.

Jaime leans down and plucks Cersei’s tea from the table, takes a sip, and grimaces at the taste of it. They do this nearly every time they’re together at tea time and Daenerys would be disgusted by it if she wasn’t charmed by it instead. They often couldn’t share this closeness with one another in public, not before the rest of the court, who already find them ridiculous. As good as they are—as perfect and primed and appropriate they remain when in the presence of others, save the occasional dalliance where no one would think to look—they are scorned, too, for falling too quickly into line. It makes Daenerys feel for them, that they can have this and yet not be as affectionate as they might want to be.

She’s never seen two people so in love.

“Ned Stark is a coward,” Cersei is saying, getting back onto the point. “And he likes to pretend he’s above it all, but whether he likes it or not, he’s Warden of the North. There are expectations there. Every Great House has also sworn their vows. If Ned Stark took issue with this, he should’ve complained before, not only after his children are old enough to wed.” She waves her hand through the air and Jaime captures it as he bends to replace the cup from where he took it. “Besides, does he really expect he can defeat the might of King’s Landing and Highgarden alone? He’ll never convince our father to choose a side and there’s no one else willing to stand with him.”

Jaime’s brow furrows and his lips pucker in thought as he takes the bench next to Cersei’s. Running his hand through his hair, he squints at the harbor. Light shines off the surface of the water, glinting and sparkling even at this distance. “Ned Stark is stubborn, but he doesn’t like seeing his people killed either. I’m less worried about him than by what pressure the vassal houses will put on him.” His gaze turns, sympathetic, toward Daenerys, like he might be betraying her by saying these things.

“I know how unpopular my father is right now,” Daenerys replies. She can’t explain why that resentment is bubbling up now of all times, but she knows it’s there. She still hasn’t talked about it with Rhaegar. In truth, she’s relieved to hear it being discussed openly now. This isn’t something she has to be embarrassed about, she realizes. Nothing she says here will get back to anyone. They are as loyal to her father and to her as anyone could be. They’re _invested_ in legitimization. That makes it safe to say these words to them. They’ve broken with their own father for House Targaryen. That means something to Daenerys.

Jaime’s frown remains firmly in place. “I’m sorry,” he offers. “There’s just…”

The question comes to her as a lightning flash and she has to swallow around the bile that climbs her throat. Everyone knows what they say about Targaryens. “Do you think he might be…?”

Jaime’s gaze turns to Cersei, who looks back at him. Their expressions aren’t entirely readable, but she’s got her answer already. The world holds its breath on the toss of a coin when a Targaryen is born. Madness. Greatness. It is always one or the other. If they didn’t think it was a possibility, they would have said as much immediately.

Jaime’s features clear, the cloud of Daenerys’s question passing over his face, leaving behind only bright, blue sky. “That isn’t something we need concern ourselves with. Houses go to war all the time over the flimsiest of excuses. If Ned Stark wishes to push your father this way, that’s his prerogative.”

“And how do you feel about it?” Cersei asks her, sharp, deeply interested. It’s enough to put her on edge. She’s so rarely asked for her opinion. “If he were, what would you want to do about it?”

“He’s my father,” she answers, though it’s not an answer at all, not really. If he’s mad, that demands some kind of response, doesn’t it? Madness cannot sit a throne for long. If she knows nothing else, she knows this, and wishes she could speak openly about it with Rhaegar. But she can’t. He’s gone to the North just as he said he would and while he’d still been here, those few days between decision and actions, the words just wouldn’t come. At every dinner, the small party the night before he left, even when they crossed paths in the halls, she couldn’t come out and ask him. She hasn’t yet figured out how to phrase it. So even when he comes back, she might not be ready. She loathes this fact. It shouldn’t be so hard to speak with him. He is family—and the only family she has that she doesn’t despise or despises her in one way or the other.

“A lot of fathers have died in their time,” Cersei points out. She is not unkind in the recitation, but it still startles Daenerys, who’s never heard her speak in such a way about the king. “Kingdoms remain. What would you do about it?”

She has no good answer, though it’s clear enough that Cersei believes she should. ”I don’t know.”

Disappointment pulls at the corner of her mouth and she takes a final sip of her tea. Her grimace now matches Jaime’s from earlier, but Daenerys suspects it’s simply because the dregs have gone cold and not because she’s sweetened it so deeply with honey. “You should always be two steps ahead of everyone else, dearest. Think on what you would do and ensure you’re in a position to do it if the time comes. Everyone else is.”

If. Not when. So perhaps it remains uncertain even to her.

She breathes out and nods and tries not to think too deeply on Cersei calling her dearest in this way. An ache settles in her chest and leaves her breathless, staggered under the weight of it. It shouldn’t hurt, the sound of Cersei’s affection, but it cannot go anywhere, can it, not when she and Jaime already have one another.

She is superfluous to that happiness, an interloper. Even in her dreams, even if Cersei did feel as much affection for her as Daenerys felt, it wouldn’t matter. There is no room.

Cersei doesn’t seem to notice Daenerys’s turmoil and Daenerys is glad for it. What could she possibly say to Cersei in such a situation? _I’m sorry, please don’t say such things to me, I want what you have with one another?_ Impossible. Not to be done. She might not even mean it with as much affection as Daenerys would hope of her. Sometimes, Cersei just says things, sweet things, angry things. There’s no rhyme or reason to them. Perhaps this is one of those situations. Or perhaps Daenerys is reading too much into it because she wants to.

That seems the most likely answer to all of this.

So she sighs quietly and says nothing further, knowing well enough that Cersei’s suggestion is sound, affectionately spoken or not.

*

The bells do not ring for happy circumstances and they awaken Daenerys from slumber now, a mourning sound, the twang of metal striking metal an alert that all is not well. It takes a moment for her mind to gather together in understanding. Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.

She rushes to her window, hearing shouts as she pries open the shuttered glass. They are shouts of anger, at least, and not trauma. The Northmen are not at the gate. The city, further out, looks still to be at rest, rising slowly as the bells intone their warning cry throughout.

She’s halfway to her door, stopping only to gather a robe around her shoulders, when there’s pounding against it. At first, she’s fearful, but she relaxes slightly when it’s Cersei shouting through it. “You must come,” she is saying. It’s strange to hear her speak so. In the normal course of events, she doesn’t raise it except in anger and those moments have never been directed Daenerys’s way. “Quickly.”

Daenerys hesitates. She isn’t appropriately dressed for the moment, probably shouldn’t go out in such scant silks and bare feet, but there’s no time. When Cersei says nothing at her state of dress, she is relieved and frightened even more. “What’s happened?”

“The king is—” Cersei’s words choke off, strangled by rage, maybe, or regret. “I’m not sure what’s occurred exactly. There’s talk—prepare for the worst, do you understand? Are you ready?”

Daenerys’s heart lodges in her throat, but she nods, and follows through the winding corridors to the heart of Westeros.

When they arrive, there is already a crowd and Cersei’s pushing her way through, Daenerys slipping through Cersei’s wake.

What they find at the very center—or so it seems—is a massacre. Or so it feels to Daenerys, because her only living family in King’s Landing is splayed across the ground, pools of blood beneath them. Papers are scattered around them, a handful of letters by the looks of them, but they, too, are stained with blood.

“Some Kingsguard you are,” she hears, Ser Barristan maybe, though she can’t be sure over the rustle of an entire room’s worth of whispers. She doesn’t think she’s ever heard him so disappointed. There is snickering among the crowd, the exhausted, neurotic titters of people who have no clue what to do now. There is a whisper throughout the crowd. _King’s Protector_, and then a few more hysterical laughs. Somehow she knows this won’t be the last time that moniker will be spoken aloud.

It fills her with fury. Unfurling deep in her chest, it threatens to consume her in a roaring conflagration.

They are laughing over her father and brother’s corpse. They’re laughing over Jaime, his armor and sword spattered in blood, a haunted expression on his face, their mockery cutting deep into him.

“Jaime!” Cersei is calling and even that twinges. Just once, she could think of something other than him, but he snaps back to himself a bit as she says his name and that’s worth more than Daenerys’s grief. She approaches him slowly, carefully, and does not touch him, though it’s clear enough from the way her hands hover that she wants to.

Daenerys has to do something, take control of this somehow. If she doesn’t, there might be nothing left to salvage when Rhaegar returns.

Her feet are silent as she steps forward, cold against the floor. Foolish of her not to even put on slippers. But it’s too late now and nobody’s attention is truly on her. Perhaps in time, no one will remember that she stands here, barely dressed.

Or maybe, she thinks darkly, the mummers will see and immortalize Daenerys the Bare-Footed for all time in a song sung by her enemies to malign her even further.

“What has happened here?” she calls, voice clear, anger barely controlled. Her tone is deeper than she remembers it being, commanding. It’s easier than she might have thought to push aside her grief, though that roils inside of her, too. The only catch is seeing Jaime’s face, entreating her for something—forgiveness, maybe. Absolution. Whatever _has_ happened, she will hear him out; she cannot believe he’s responsible for this destruction. She keeps her gaze steady. Nobody who catches her glance keeps hold of it; they all of them drop their eyes to the floor first. Good. Let them fear her. She needs to get her bearings here, take control of the situation. Once this has been cleared up—it won’t be cleared up, she tells herself, but she can’t think of it in any other way, not right now—then she’ll worry about concepts like fear and love.

She wishes, though, that she could reassure Jaime and Cersei. Cersei is looking at her as though only seeing her for the first time and Jaime, Jaime looks sick to his stomach, moments away from dropping to the floor.

It’s only then that she sees that his hand is pressed against his side, that there is blood on his fingers, seeping out beneath the join in his armor. Who did that, she asks herself, was it Viserys or her father? Does it matter?

She decides: it does. It matters to her that someone—probably her own family—harmed him in any way, shape, or form. It matters to her that he is injured. It matters that what he’s done has left a mark on him. She would rather him whole than otherwise and she finds she does not regret her brother’s death in the slightest. It is a relief to see his crumpled body and know that she needn’t fear his whims any longer.

It’s more complicated with her father, but she pushes those emotions aside for the moment.

“Your Highness,” he says and his voice is shaky through the formality, the stoicism that keeps him upright, braced on one side now by Cersei, whose arm is wrapped around his waist. “I cannot—”

“Explain to me,” she says, proud of how even her voice remains. It’s smooth as dragon’s glass, dark and reflecting very, very little. Just the way a queen should be. But this is still Jaime. For him and Cersei alone, she added, low, pleading, “Please.”

“Your brother…” Jaime’s breath rattles as he exhales. “It was too late by the time I realized what he intended to do.” He points to a dagger that has slipped across the floor, a streak of blood trailing beside it. “He attacked your father. I had to take action. For the good of the realm.”

It doesn’t make any sense. Why do this now? She doesn’t realize she’s asked it until Jaime is bending, groaning, to pick up a letter that lay nearby. Even from several meters away, she can tell it’s Rhaegar’s handwriting. Hissing, Jaime steps toward her. When she tries to approach, he lifts his hand and then points to the floor. Spatters of blood dot the area near her feet. He finishes his approach and hands it to her.

The parchment barely shakes in her grasp. She reads it once, then a second time. And again. She reads it until the words make sense and even then she can’t believe what she’s seeing. She becomes exquisitely cognizant of the people arrayed behind them. So many options suddenly spread themselves before her and none of them are good. Only a few will result in anything that won’t end with her dead, too. “Clear the room,” she says, loud, and though the order is for Jaime, it’s Cersei who steps forward.

“Out,” she calls, her voice louder than even Daenerys’s could manage. It reverberates off the walls, cuts through the sudden complaints of everyone around them when she repeats herself. “Get. Out.” It takes a long time for everyone to filter out of the room and Daenerys almost cannot stand the strain of remaining collected in that time.

It’s only when Cersei bars the door, the thud of the various locks protecting them, that Daenerys lets out a gasp and sways. Jaime’s grip is tight on her arm and though she wishes she was the type to flinch at the touch of her family’s blood on her arm, she learns she isn’t. She is merely grateful for the support. “How could he have done this?” she asks, though neither Jaime nor Cersei could possibly have an answer for her. She turns, beseeching, to Cersei. “Could it be a trick of some sort?”

“You know your brother better than I,” she answers, though that answer is, in some ways, answer enough. If she thought it was a trick, she probably would have said as much.

Daenerys wishes she’d said something to them sooner about Rhaegar’s desire to go North. This must have always been his intention. It’s the only part of this that makes sense. “He loves her,” she says and she feels relief about that, too. “Lyanna Stark.”

“How they even know one another is anyone’s guess,” Cersei says. But Daenerys knows that it’s not very difficult to keep secrets. Daenerys has kept some of her own in her life and even Cersei hasn’t managed to guess at them. “But it would take a strong bond to give up all of this, I think.”

Daenerys looks at the letter again, at Rhaegar’s assertion that he cannot be the king his father would have wanted him to be, that he intends to marry Lyanna Stark whatever his father or anyone else thinks. There’s nothing in the letter about Daenerys, no guidance for her there. But the shape of what happened begins to form in her mind. It’s frighteningly easy to see Viserys having intercepted it or her father raging about it while Viserys watched on. She could see the idea forming in Viserys’s mind. Rhagar would not be king. That meant Viserys would inherit the throne. He could inherit it all the sooner if he only slipped his knife between their father’s ribs.

“What did he think you would do?” she asked. “Or the others?”

“He believed we would stand down,” Jaime answers, bitter and cold and brutal, but when she looks up at him, all she sees is regret. “He would have been right if not for me. They’re cowards, the lot of them. If I couldn’t protect the king, then they’re even worse. They just stood there and—” His nose wrinkles in distaste and his cheeks redden with fury. “Viserys shouldn’t be king of anything, let alone Westeros. And I’ve seen how he treats you. I couldn’t let that—I’m sorry, Your Highness. I will submit myself to whatever punishment you see fit to exact, but I could not let him sit on the Iron Throne.”

Cersei makes a sound, somewhere between a scoff and noise intended to shut him up.

It takes her a moment to realize that she is the only remaining Targaryen with any power in the world and the Iron Throne is right there. Right. There. “Ser Jaime,” she says, stunned, disoriented. She lets go of his arm and approaches the throne. She presses her fingertips against the sharp blades of its arms. They do not cut her. Her voice takes on a thoughtful cast. She is not yet twenty years old and she can hold Westeros in her fist and she is no longer betrothed to Rhaegar. “I will not punish you for this.”

“Your Highness?” he asks, concerned.

She looks back at him and then looks at Cersei, who has an approving upward twist to her mouth. Her eyes glint as though daring her to sit down and occupy the spot her father had held for so long. He’s barely cold, his skin only pale, barely deathlike. It should hurt more to consider the possibility.

But it does not. Instead, that aching need she’d always ignored inside of her, the desire to be heard, to be useful to the people of Westeros, to hold power when she had even less freedom than some commoners out in the world who did as they wished, it roars to the fore, pulses in her ears like blood. The throne calls to her as nothing ever has. But how can she…? Nobody would accept her, would they? But they’d gone when she’d demanded it, too, and they’d been useless the entire time they stood here…

Could she…?

She wants it, wants it more than she wants anything else and Rhaegar and Viserys have left her as perfectly poised as she’ll ever be to take what has always been and should been hers. She’s the smartest of them, the most capable. Her father just hadn’t been able to see it, and neither could they, not really.

“Will they follow?” she asks and neither Jaime nor Cersei have to ask what she means. “If I give them what they want—” Frankly, her father’s edicts are useless to her, less than. She doesn’t care who marries whom, but his insistence, even in the face of such backlash, had been, in retrospect, entirely irrational. There are better ways of demanding loyalty. “Will they back down for the time being?”

If she only had time, she would be able to prove herself. That’s all she needs: time. But she can see it spooled out before her. She could gather the country to her, assert that she is not in favor of these laws of her father’s. They would have impinged her own freedoms, too, if he had not died.

For the first time ever, she sees contempt for her in Cersei’s eyes. “They will think you weak for capitulating when they haven’t even spilled their own blood or anyone else’s for it. They will think you easily frightened.” Her hand wraps tight around Jaime’s and Daenerys is finally stunningly aware of what Cersei truly doesn’t want.

If Daenerys reverses the law, then they will again be shunned entirely. They will have sacrificed their loyalty for nothing. The freedoms they have enjoyed to love one another will be destroyed. And they will not again be able to even have assignations in secret, because they have so openly flaunted their relationship. Jaime looks a degree more—hopeful is not the right word for it, but Daenerys doesn’t have a better one.

Daenerys swallows, her heart pounding in her chest, threatening to break free of its cage. She would not hurt them for all the world. “Then I will ensure they do not see me as weak,” she asserts, sitting down. The chair is not comfortable, a precarious piece of business at best. But it is hers and she will fight for it.

She thinks she already knows what she will do.

Nobody will like it except Cersei and Jaime, but they have earned at least this much from her. And she finds she wants to do it, punish those around her who displease her. And who would be more easily displeased than Daenerys, having lost most of her family in one fell swoop, having faced the mockery of so many for so long?

*

She is alone in her room when she hears the knock. Familiar, it’s enough to draw her from the wounded depth of her thoughts. She’s alone here, abandoned. Her father and brother are gone and she doesn’t miss them. Her brother has gone north without telling her that he never truly intended to come back. Did he think of her at all when he went? She won’t miss him as a lover might, but only as a sister would, and regrets that he apparently felt he couldn’t trust her with this.

“Coming,” she says, though she should probably show more concern about her safety at this moment. She is the queen now, or she intends to be. There will be a scramble to fill the vacuum her father left behind, but everyone scrambling will have to get through her first, and she doesn’t intend to give in easily. But that’s for another moment. Right now all she has is this time by herself and a knock from Cersei.

She is very certain she knows the sound of it by now.

Cersei is the only one who’d bother to check on her. Cersei has always been as close to her as anyone. If Daenerys succeeds, she will be Daenerys’s Hand, and they will rule jointly. In fact, if not in actuality.

She opens the door and is surprised when it’s both Cersei and Jaime there. He is scrubbed clean and isn’t wearing his armor. It’s become so ubiquitous to her that she’s strangely put off by its absence. He looks slighter in the tunic he’s chosen, a shade of red that is almost black and makes the rest of him seem to glow almost gold in contrast. Cersei wears a deep green dress that suits her as everything suits her: perfectly. They are as stunning and untouchable as ever and she doesn’t want to see either of them, but she can’t turn them away, not now, when she’s invested so much of herself in them, in her feelings for them.

Anyone else might have had Jaime’s head for what he did, justified or not, avenging the king or not. Even if they hated Viserys as much as she did, they may have done so for form’s sake, for propriety. But she did not and she did not want to, still doesn’t, and she knows herself well enough by now to gutter the hope in her chest the way she’s guttered everything else except this one goal.

She will rule, one way or the other. It is hers now that everyone else has turned away from that power. She has earned it and she is worthy of it.

“May we come inside?” Jaime asks, taking a rare bit of initiative. His voice is warm, charming, and she aches to feel something other than longing for him and for Cersei.

“It has gotten rather late—” A polite lie, but one that is true enough they cannot call her on it. “—and it has been…”

How does one answer from the corner she’s pushed herself into? Does she admit to them that she’s fallible when they already know it to be true? Is that something she can admit to? She wants to be queen. A queen can only be perfect and so must she become. Perhaps this is the time to start. She squares her shoulders, looks them both in the eye, stern, cold as steel. She tips her chin up. “What did you need?”

They’re clearly not expecting this sort of reception and Daenerys is perversely pleased by the brief flicker of surprise that crosses both of their faces, twin expressions that would give them away if nothing else about their bond already did. They are so entwined, it’s almost painful to witness.

“We wished to see if there was anything you needed, Your Grace.” This is Cersei, grown distant by the new roles they occupy. Daenerys hates that distance.

Grace. _Grace._ She does not feel anything approaching grace at the moment. No, she feels cursed, poisoned. Scraped out and expected to perform exactly as she’s always done and maybe, maybe hope that someone less scrupulous than she comes along and takes her home from her, everything she holds dear. 

“I’m well,” she replies, cool, gathering strength about her, as much as she can manage. There’s so much yet to do and she will need them before the end, but that doesn’t make any of this easier in the meantime. At this point, she just feels wrung out and she cannot ask the one thing of them that might bring her comfort and relief. She does not dare. “I believe we’ll succeed in our goals.” Though she can all but hear the walls whispering with plans and conspiracies, she needs time to rest, to think. “As long as we’re smart about it.”

“And we’re always smart,” Jaime says, a slight, bitter laugh in his voice.

“We’re still here, aren’t we?” Daenerys replies. “That leaves us better positioned than some.”

She doesn’t mean it as a criticism, but Jaime flinches anyway. Were this before, she might have apologized or explained, but this is not before and all she has left is strength, a false sense of certainty. She must learn to wield them both if she is to prove herself against those who would take this opportunity from her.

“We should consider what we will do,” she says, turning away. The last thing she wants at the moment is to consider maneuvers against her enemies; all she wants to do is sleep or share a meal with her closest confidants and discuss pointless gossip. But since they are here, might as well make the most of the time. That’s what a queen would do. “Cersei, I would like you to serve as my Hand. And Jaime, I’d like you to remain as the Captain of the Kingsguard.”

“We are most grateful for that, of course,” Cersei says and there is avarice in her voice, a smugness that indicates she knows just how much she deserves such a role, but it is tempered by something else as well, something Daenerys can’t identify. “That isn’t what either of us meant to do in coming here tonight.”

“Then what did you mean?” Impatience licks up her spine, takes its place in the back of her thoughts, urging this whole charade to get to its point. Because as far as she can see, she’s got them exactly in the place she most wants them and it still doesn’t matter in the slightest. Whatever they want can’t possibly be what she wants and the unfairness of that sticks in her throat, gives her words a sharp, unhappy edge that draws Cersei’s attention. She continues, because neither of them answer her, “Because we’ll need to work quickly if we don’t want this taken away from us.”

_Us. Not me._ It’s her kingdom, her legacy, but it will mean nothing if there’s no one to share it with. It should have been Rhaegar’s and now it wouldn’t be and Daenerys is the one left behind, meant to clean up this mess. It’s an opportunity she cannot squander. She wonders if Rhaegar knew this would happen somehow.

“There is time enough for that conversation,” Cersei replies, utterly, unfathomably reasonable. Perhaps that is true for her, but to Daenerys, time feels as though it slips through her fingers, so much sand that she cannot rightly grasp. “This isn’t the ideal time, but Jaime and I have realized there will never be a good time now. We waited too long.” Her gaze slips sideways and she continues speaking only when Jaime nods. “In honesty, we didn’t think there would be a chance—”

Her impatience gutters, choked by her fears and concerns. She has no idea what Cersei is saying, though each word, next to the last, makes grammatical sense. But it’s like Cersei is performing some manner of doublespeak, a second meaning and understanding haunting her words that Jaime seems privy to and she does not. It stings more than it should—she’s never in all her years shared anything of the sort with her own brothers and there were no lovers to share such a close bond with—but she tamps down on the feeling. “There may not be,” she snaps, the sensation more comfortable than all this waiting for the ax to fall, “if you do not reach your point.”

“Then I’ll make my point.” Cersei steps forward then, the hem of her dress swishing lightly against the floor as she approaches. Daenerys’s heart speeds up and her palms sweat and she doesn’t remotely feel ready for whatever Cersei intends. And if she cannot handle this, how will she handle whatever her kingdom decides to throw at her? Before she can get lost in the thicket of those thoughts, however, Cersei’s hands brush against her cheeks and Cersei pinches her chin between her fingers and Cersei presses a light kiss against her lips.

It should feel wrong or—or bad in some way. This isn’t what her father would have wanted for her. But she gasps anyway, her mouth opening beneath Cersei’s, which Cersei takes aggressive advantage of, slipping her tongue between Daenerys’s teeth to lick at the inside of Daenerys’s mouth. It is intimate, different and somehow the same from what she’d imagined and all she can do is grab hold of Cersei’s shoulders for fear of her knees giving out on her.

She’s startled by Jaime’s sudden presence behind her, his steps quiet and unfamiliar without his armor to give him away. She trembles as he pushes aside her hair, held secure only in the loosest of braids, and kisses the back of her neck, only the slightest hint of stubble to mar the softness of his lips.

She has questions, so many questions, but she finds she doesn’t want or need the answer to any of them at the moment.

Jaime and Cersei being here is all the answer she truly needs.

*

A larger group of people than she’s seen in years crowds into the throne room around her. If not for her Kingsguard, she might not have made it through the thick press. Everyone stares and whispers and she should, perhaps, feel self-conscious about that, but it’s difficult with Cersei and Jaime next to her, severe and stoic and trusting her to lead them. Cersei wears a pin on her breast, just above her heart. Jaime is resplendent.

It is a lot of weight to bear, the expectations of a nation boring down on her and them, but it distributes across her shoulders with more ease than she expects and as she approaches the Iron Throne, she is not overwhelmed, is not fearful of taking her place upon that seat of power.

It is hers by right. She is the only one who hasn’t abandoned it or what it means.

She is a Targaryen, but she is not her father or brothers. She need not be needlessly cruel and she will not abandon the kingdom for her own purposes. Unlike Rhaegar, everything she needs is here.

And she will be the leader she was always meant to be. She believes in herself and she believes in them.

Together.


End file.
